SUPER SMASHING GREAT

Family heartache

Verily’s blog about the project states: “Aedes aegypti first appeared in the central valley of California in 2013, and since then has become pervasive in Fresno County.

“This study will be the largest U.S. release to-date of sterile male mosquitoes treated with Wolbachia, a naturally occurring bacterium, and will take place over a 20 week period in two neighbourhoods each approximately 300 acres in size.

“When these sterile males mate with wild females the resulting eggs will not hatch.

“To measure our outcomes, we will compare the adult population density and egg hatching of Aedes aegypti in these targeted areas to two control neighbourhoods.

“Over time, we hope to see a steep decline in the presence of Aedes aegypti in these communities.”

Fortunately for the residents of Fresno the male of the species doesn’t bite, meaning they shouldn’t be scratching anymore than usual.

Linus Upson, a senior engineer at Verily, told the MIT Technology Review:“If we really want to be able to help people globally, we need to be able to produce a lot of mosquitoes, distribute them to where they need to be, and measure the populations at very, very low costs.

“We want to show this can work in different kinds of environments.”

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